CAN A MOVIE HELP SAVE A STUDIO?

The animated film, 'Finding Dory', has been a huge hit already this year. Not only has it beaten its predecessor at the box office, 'Finding Nemo', managing to bring in an incredible $929.1 million dollars, but on top of that, it has also come as a great help to the studio itself, what with Disney reportedly in a struggle. In today's climate, there's no doubt that the success of a singular film, series, or franchise can make or break a studio.

Independent small studios will often see the biggest success in terms of percentage revenue. Often small movies will get made on a shoelace budget but then see wild success at the box office. The first example of this would have to be ‘The Blairwitch’ project: The handheld camera film which was a hit at the cinemas, and helped to change film methodology by providing hope to all young producers and directors, showing them that a film could make a big splash with a small production.

But it is not only a studio which can be affected by this. As a company, Netflix has had a lot of its early success with House of Cards, and in its own way, the show took Netflix into another level, making it a spring board for much of the success the entertainment business has accomplished.

However, shows of this nature haven't been the only sustainable success story in the TV industry, as it has also become ever more important to implement franchises as well. This can be reflected in a film that develops into a block of different merchandising opportunities, as well as developing sub-films which belong in the same universe as the original. As of late, Marvel have been a major hit behind this business model, as they quite literally created the ‘Avengers’ universe and developed a host of films which were interlinked before expanding into TV, with all the story-lines kept under one bracket. At the time Marvel were still a relatively small studio, just before Disney saw their massive potential, despite the use of comic book characters which weren’t deemed ‘popular enough’ for the big screen. They then went on to help with production and have created arguably the biggest film franchise out at the moment.

This model has since been copied with Warner Brothers attempting to develop something similar with the DC comic bookworld.

Franchises don’t always work out the way you want though. Other studios have gone on to use a similar sort of business model, but have seen their sequel films suffer financially. The original ‘Saw’ film was a big hit with both critics and fans alike, and it went on to develop a very strong fan base, as well as further expanding merchandising opportunities with a roller coaster ride. Problem is, the quality of the films have diminished over time, and this has seen its production house, Twisted Studios, suffer somewhat.

Although studios are not dependent on the success of their films it still does make a big difference. This year Disney has taken a big slap in the mouth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have been producing bad movies. A huge amount of Disney’s shares fall into other brackets, such as their TV network, theme parks, and cable channel. So a bad year for Disney could be represented in a poorer economic climate, which see’s people cut back on things like activities and entertainment. With the world suffering somewhat in a negative economy it is easy to see why a huge corporation in the entertainment industry could take a hit.

In reality the huge success of 'Finding Dory' and the 'Jungle Book' have given Disney a new lease of life. They were never going to go bust, but these latest releases will have given the business a real boost and will help push all their other commodities.

So yes, a film can help save a studio. But in the same breath, they can also break a studio too. The film industry can be a risky and cut throat business to get into, but there is no doubting the huge success you can have.